My new Writer Unboxed column is live today. The topic: How to give a literary reading, which you probably gathered by the title of this blog post. Anyway, here's an excerpt:

Before the Reading

Eat a healthy and delicious breakfast that morning.Choose wisely, as this is what you’ll be throwing up later due to your crippling stage fright.

Set the stage. Arrive at the venue early and get a lay of the land. Check if there will be a microphone or lectern or what-have-you. Look for opportunities for cool visuals, such as a blown-up picture of your book cover, or a big poster of your face like in Citizen Kane. Queue up some entrance music. Walking up to the mic through misty clouds from your smoke machine to the tune of “Rock You Like a Hurricane” will let your audience know that a serious author is taking the stage.

Choose the right piece to read. You’ll want something people can follow without you having to explain a bunch of backstory beforehand. The beginning of your book is a good choice. An exception to this rule is if you’re reading the first chapter of a sequel–to make sure people know what’s going on, be sure to read the climax of your previous book first.

Have you heard of Patreon? It’s a company that empowers crowd-sourced patronage of the arts, including but not limited to authors. By pledging monthly support at one of various patronage tiers, each with its own level of perks and rewards, you’re able to support your favorite writers directly. I have recently started my own, and it is my fondest wish that your patronage does not include me.

Are your gadgets and gizmos getting in the way of your writing? I've got some ideas. Good ideas. GREAT ideas.

The Typewriter: The older, the heavier, the more beat-up, the better. The main thing is you want it to be LOUD; when you type, it should sound like an army of spooky skeletons are storming your front door. This has the added bonus of scaring away any roving bands of skeletons, who are very territorial and don’t like to move in on another skeleton gang’s territory.

Some good-quality paper: Show people you mean business by buying some heavy bond in brilliant, gleaming white. Paper so white, it hurts to look at. Paper so white, it’s pronounced “HHWHITE!” Paper so white, if it gives you a paper cut, the cops will let it off with just a warning.

Method 1: The Squiggle

The ink should flow from your pen like the wine flowed down your gullet when you wrote your book. I don’t mean that literally–we don’t want the pen to explode, you lush! Just put some oomph into it while you’re signing. If you do it right, your signature should match your polygraph readout when someone asks you how many books you’ve sold.

Friday - 11pm - Cameron - Robot and AI Rights (M)

Self driving cars, drones, and sexbots: the lines between science and science fiction are blurring when it comes to AI and machine automation. And have you seen the Boston Dynamics robot dogs? The future is now, y’all.Panelists: Bill Ferris, Christos Archer, James Maxey, Randy Richards

April: Set aside the first half of the month to do your taxes for all the books you sold last year. If you didn’t sell many (or any) books, reserve this time for crying softly in the dark. You can spend the second half of the month finishing the novel draft you were supposed to finish in March.

May: You’re not really used to planning things this far in advance. I mean, they could have flying cars and faster-than-light travel by then! There’s a good chance they’ll have a device that can extract the words for your novel directly from your brain.

June: The rejection letters from those short stories you sent out in March should start arriving. Spend the rest of the month in an coffee-fueled anxiety attack and revise each piece until it’s barely recognizable. That way, maybe someday someone, somewhere, will finally love you.

Now go read the whole thing. I mean, if you want to, I didn't mean that as a command or anything. But you totally should.

Hello! Here's my year-end post about my work that's eligible for awards. It's just one story this year, but it's a good one that I like very much: My Enemy, the Unicorn, published in Unidentified Funny Objects 5. Please enjoy this short excerpt:

Snowflake had been Jax Zoo's lone unicorn since his mate, Raindrop, broke her leg. Scuttlebutt was that the zookeepers had used their gun on her, then split the carcass between the griffins, tigers, and bears. This had come from Lily and her friends, though, and they were full of shit half the time, and at least half-full all of the time. They told Chad all sorts of things, like if he'd been taken to any other state, he'd have rights as a person, but like most creatures of arcane genetics and questionable legality, he'd ended up in Florida.

“When I start writing a song, I like to put together a real detailed outline first. Then I hand it over to some freelancers I know from the advertising business, and they hash out the chords and the lyrics while I cruise down to the club for a quick nine holes. Much more efficient this way. Production is up 23% this quarter. The market needs product, man. Gotta feed the beast.”

I'll be reading my short story, "My Enemy, the Unicorn" at Capclave in Washington, DC on Friday, October 7 at 5 pm. It's part of the Unidentified Funny Objects Launch Party. Come see me and a bunch of other funny authors read their work.